What a picture of manly beauty he made, lying there with half-shut eyes on the rich couch with its Oriental draperies. The gas-light, half-turned down, cast weird shadows all about the room. In the little sleeping-room beyond, seen through the half-drawn _portière_, all was dark and still. Did a white, desperate face with gleaming eyes peer out of that gloom upon the young man resting there in his velvet dressing-gown, one shapely hand tossed up over his brown curly head, the dark, curly lashes drooping downward to the pale cheek? Yes, he was well worth looking at, this gifted young actor, this genius who at barely twenty-five had scored such dazzling successes in the dramatic world, and written his name up high upon the scroll of fame. It was no wonder that women raved over his beauty and his genius, and that they filled his daily mail with love letters that he flung into the fire after one contemptuous glance. But were they eyes of love that gleamed on him now, lying so pale and still and sad, with his thoughts upon his beautiful young love? Alas! a gleam of tigerish hate shone in those steel-blue orbs as they watched the young man; and when at last the fringed lashes drooped against his cheek, a faint sigh of relief escaped the lips of the impatient watcher. For hours and hours she had been waiting there; but it seemed as if he did not mean to retire to-night. Now he had fallen into a light doze. Perhaps he would sleep there all night. Oh, Ralph Chainey, wake! From the curtained darkness beyond a fiend is gliding toward you! The shrouding hood of the long cloak has fallen back from the face of a woman--a bold, handsome face with steel-blue eyes, and glittering golden hair. In her upraised hand glitters a long thin dagger, on her face is stamped in awful, ashen pallor the fell purpose--murder! But he sleeps on lightly, dreaming, perhaps, of Kathleen, while this beautiful fury glides soundlessly across the thick moquette carpet, gains his side, poises her shining weapon on high, aims for his heart, and--it descends, it pierces his breast! Ralph Chainey was sleeping but lightly, and as the cold steel entered his breast a shudder ran over his whole frame, the dew of pain started on his brow, and with a shriek of mortal agony he staggered to his feet, clutching blindly at the midnight assailant. She had not counted on this; she thought her frenzied blow would be short, sharp, and decisive, that she would have time to fly from the scene of her terrible crime. She was mistaken. His outstretched arms caught and held her with the momentary fierce strength of a dying man; his blood spurted out in hot streams upon her face and hands.